"I am sorry and blame myself for bringing my granddaughter to the hospital. When we arrived she was in good condition and fully conscious. She died because of the doctor's ego and arrogance," said Scout Hami yesterday with great sadness, whose four-month-old granddaughter Noga Panso died on September 22, 2021 In the children's emergency room of the Emek Hospital in Afula.
The baby was brought to the hospital because she was unable to urinate and after about an hour and a half of unsuccessful attempts to take her blood, she died.
"There was no place where she was not stabbed in the bed of the reception in the emergency room. If they thought she was in a serious condition, why was she treated there? We asked them to call an anesthesiologist to connect her to an IV and take her blood, but they were not ready to listen to us and tried repeatedly to do so, without success.
We asked them to call an anesthesiologist to connect her to an IV and take her blood, but they weren't ready to listen, illustration, photo: Getty
"All this time she screamed until she passed out. They really abused her terribly. There was no reason for her to die. I fainted when the doctor said she was already in the process of resuscitation and that she was collapsing. Even then they didn't let me in to see her even though she was my granddaughter."
An investigative committee was established
These difficult things take on a particularly heavy and tragic weight in light of the fact that Scout herself is a respected and veteran nurse at the Emek Hospital, who has been working in the otolaryngology department for 40 years.
A week ago, the parents Hadas and Eli filed a medical malpractice claim with the Tel Aviv District Court, demanding financial compensation, against the hospital and against Klalit Health Services, which are responsible for the hospital.
The lawsuit, revealed here for the first time, was filed by attorney Anat Ginzburg, who specializes in representing victims of medical negligence.
It should be noted that the Ministry of Health established an inspection committee to investigate the case headed by the director of the emergency medicine unit for children at Dana Children's Hospital in Ichilov, Dr. Ayelet Rimon. The inspection committee was established following the demand of Attorney Ginzburg.
The Ministry of Health established an inspection committee to investigate the affair, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
The request letter for the establishment of the inspection committee was written by Attorney Ginzburg to the Commissioner of Public Acceptability for the Medical Professions at the Ministry of Health, Dr. Boaz Lev, back in December 2021. They saw with their own eyes what happened to their horror," she wrote.
However, the Ministry of Health sent the notice about the establishment of the committee to the family only a full year after the request.
The family has not even been invited to testify before her, so it is expected that the investigation will take a very long time.
Scout testifies that "Even after the disaster, they didn't tell me anything, and I didn't hear anything from the hospital management about what happened, even though I've been working at the hospital full-time for so many years. After she died, only the nurse in the emergency room told me, 'It's good that you brought her, otherwise She would have died at home. They claim that she arrived at the hospital in serious condition. This is a lie and a lie."
"They claim that she arrived at the hospital in a serious condition. This is a lie and a lie."
Grandma Scout,
"What does anesthesiologist know?"
The Emek Hospital, which serves approximately one million Israeli citizens and residents in the Emekim and the Galilee, has been at the center of an unprecedented public and media struggle in the past year, in the framework of which serious allegations were made of discrimination, deprivation, neglect and long-term damage to the hospital by the management of the General Health Insurance Fund and the management of the Ministry of Health.
The extraordinary struggle was revealed in a series of articles in Israel Hayom, and led to a series of special debates in the Knesset and demonstrations by the residents of the area.
The Israel Hayom Doctor's Day conference will take place tomorrow.
One of the main panels at the conference will deal with the gap between health services in the center of the country and the periphery in the north and south.
The Penso couple live in the community settlement Gan Ner in Gilboa.
According to the lawsuit, Noga was born in May 2021 - a younger sister to three brothers who "her parents and her brother filled her".
In the lawsuit it is stated that "all the family members are healthy without any genetic diseases".
As mentioned, the mother Hadas and the grandmother Tzufit brought Noga to the children's emergency room in "Haemek" after she was unable to urinate for several hours.
Scout made a phone call and consulted with the doctor in the emergency room who advised her to come.
The toddler was brought to the scene around 9:00 p.m. when, according to the lawsuit, she "showed no sign of distress, was smiling, vital and active as usual."
In the emergency room, blood pressure, saturation and temperature were normal, the lawsuit states.
After that, "the doctor and the two nurses began to stab the babies hands and feet in order to draw blood and inject an infusion. At their request, the grandmother held the baby so that she would not move. The baby suffered excruciating agony, screamed and cried hysterically. For a very long time of more than an hour, the doctor and the nurses stabbed the baby dozens times in different places along the arms and legs, but they were unable to open a vein and administer an infusion, when all this time the baby was screaming and crying in distress."
In the emergency room, the blood pressure, saturation and temperature were normal, the lawsuit states, Haemek Hospital emergency room, photo: David Cohen
The grandmother and the mother, it was written, begged the doctor in the emergency room and asked him to call a senior doctor and a specialist in pediatric intensive care or anesthesia, but the doctor defied them "what anesthesiologist knows more than me?".
When the two asked to take the baby and calm her down, the staff refused and demanded that he be allowed to continue his experiments.
As time passed and the staff continued to stab the baby her cries became less and less.
"The mother and grandmother begged"
"After over an hour, when they failed to open a vein and did not stop stabbing the baby, who was already completely collapsed from the stabbings, the staff announced that they were moving her to the shock room (where the most severe cases are treated, RR)," the lawsuit states. "The baby was no longer able to Crying, wailing and sighing, her eyes became sunken, the mother hugged her and kissed her while she was in the grandmother's arms and the doctor demanded that the baby be put down and ordered the grandmother and the mother to leave the shock room and they waited next to him.
"About five minutes later, the doctor came out and announced that the baby had collapsed and that CPR was being performed 'probably due to a heart problem'. The mother and grandmother were shocked and after a few minutes the doctor came out and announced that the baby's lungs were full of blood and the condition was not good. After a few more minutes he announced that the baby had died.
Parents Hadas and Eli.
Her mother hugged her in her last moments, photo: Eyal Margolin/Gini
"When the mother and the grandmother entered the room, they saw the baby with many stab marks on her body. The doctor told them that he did not know what happened and that a report would be issued to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of the Interior."
It should be noted that two doctors participated in the resuscitation attempts on the baby, including a senior doctor on call from the pediatric intensive care department, who were called to the emergency room."
In the lawsuit it was stated that this is "a severe and shocking tragedy that cannot be understood as it happened in a medical institution in the State of Israel. The baby died in severe agony when she was treated in a negligent manner by the medical staff in the emergency room at the 'Emek' hospital, while for over an hour she was stabbed in the arms and legs on by an unskilled team that failed to open a vein or administer an infusion. The team did not wait for the mother and grandmother who begged for the team to call a senior specialist, until finally she collapsed, collapsed and died after a short time."
"Failure to infuse fluids"
The statement of claim relies, among other things, on the opinion of Prof. Raphael Gurodisher, a senior pediatrician who managed the division of pediatrics and worked in the patient safety and risk management unit at Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva.
Prof. Gurudisher, one of the senior and veteran pediatricians in Israel, wrote that "one cannot understand the unbearable arrogance that the doctor in the emergency room took when he stabbed the baby for over an hour, and did not call another specialist to replace him, and it was not for nothing that he hid these facts in the medical record."
The statement of claim relies, among other things, on the opinion of Prof. Raphael Gurodisher, a senior pediatrician who ran the pediatrics division at Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva, photo: Danny Maron
Prof. Gurudisher also wrote that "based on the words of the mother and the grandmother and a careful examination of the medical record, the inevitable conclusion is that the failure to infuse fluids into the baby's vein and the time that was inevitably required for these repeated attempts, with unnecessary and unjustified suffering for the baby, without choosing an alternative, effective way, Easy and safe before the decision to try a central vein - unequivocally, these were the decisive factors that led to the baby's death."
He also wrote that "the act of stretching the head to succeed in puncturing the central vein was negligent and caused pressure on the artery and cessation of breathing and cardiac arrest. When a vein cannot be opened, an intensive care doctor or an anesthesiologist skilled in this must be called urgently, and not waste time and continue to stab the baby. This is serious negligence, with arrogance and arrogance for the sake of causing the baby's death."
Prof. Gurudisher went on to write that in the summary letter written by the doctor from the emergency room there is "a clear attempt to hide the true circumstances that led to the death of the baby, who found her death due to serious medical negligence by the medical staff at the 'Emek' hospital, and there is no doubt that the treatment the baby received was A marked deviation from the accepted practice in a way that establishes a medical liability obligation on the hospital for her death."
The lawsuit, revealed here for the first time, was filed by attorney Anat Ginzburg, who specializes in representing victims of medical negligence, photo: Tomer Shalom
The Emek Hospital's response: "The baby was referred to the emergency room in the evening when she was in critical condition and after falling ill, her condition worsened. Shortly after she was brought to the emergency room, her body systems collapsed, and despite the prolonged resuscitation efforts of doctors and very senior staff members, they had to pronounce her dead. Naturally, reference A full explanation of the unfortunate circumstances of the case will be provided as part of the legal proceedings. We share in the family's deep sorrow."
The response of the Ministry of Health: "An investigation of unusual medical events is professionally complex and therefore takes time. The inspection committee is now nearing the end of collecting the materials, and the family will be summoned to testify first, as is customary."
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us